Cayuga Creek

The birthplace of Le Griffon made headlines years before the shipwreck did.  Historians have used Hennipen’s  1697 woodcut to try and figure out the exact place where shipwrights constructed the frigate.  It is important to note that the drawings had PALM trees and three large mountains in them, so the authenticity of the details is suspect at best.  Using the priest’s writings indicating the ship was built two leagues above the cataract (falls), many believe the camp was at Cayuga Creek.  A movement to monument all places historical swept the area in 1896, with President McKinley and his wife touring the Angevine farm where the shipyards ‘ways’ were allegedly found years before.  McKinley was promoting a Pan-American Exposition that was to occur at the memorial in 1889.  The president drove in the first stake for the memorial, which was a plaque on a boulder sponsored by the local Daughters of the Revolution (1902).  Much of the land was sold off to the government during dam projects on the Niagara, but the farm remained private as a “reservation” around the grounds.  Later newspapers indicated that historians George Fox and Roy Fleming visited the area to sample oak trees for their research on the Manitoulin shipwreck.  It was hoped that the wreck could be excavated and returned to Niagara as an exhibit.  Today the rock sits in the yard of a home, which is blurred to remain anonymous in Google Map searches.  In 2015 a local teacher announced that a cannonball was found on his property.  It was believed to have been shot by Griffon on its maiden voyage.  At least one 'expert' believed it to be too large for the cannons aboard the ship.